A round up of this week, 'Children in the News'

If you look back over this weeks news with regards to children’s education one would find that 26 schools in the region have been praised for their teaching abilities. At least the government is recognising there are professionals with standards working to provide the people of the future. Brown has announced that schools not achieving 30% of their pupils with 5 GCSE's or above will be closed over the next 5 years. Thursday's news picked up on the stress that children can experience when moving from primary to secondary school. Followed on Friday with the news that the hundreds of millions of pounds that was spent on the literacy hour has failed, as a follow up to channel 4's recent "fight for words" campaign, which has been supported by Richard & Judy's new children's book club. However a spokes person on GMTV said that the reading standards have hardly changed since the 1950's. I found it encouraging that everyday children and education were mentioned. This reinforced the fact that we are concerned about our children and that we are working towards providing a better future.

However on the flip side there was a disturbing amount of news about children and tragedy. Still featuring in the news most days is that of Madeleine McCann and the struggle of her family to keep awareness of their daughter in the worlds mind, so that there is a hope of bringing her home. However it is important to remember there is a shocking number of people, adults and children that go missing on a daily basis, but unfortunately they don't all have the same media attention and so loved ones all over the world are going missing without a trace.

There is still Rhys Jones' killer out free after committing such a heartless crime, and these stories can only remind us of Damilola Taylor, Jamie Bulger, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman to name but a few of the more tragic stories of our children in "society". I know we can't wrap our children up in cotton wool but you hear of those people who can barely look after themselves that have children and treat them even worse, as I recall a series of books I read by a man called Dave Pelzer, whose mother used to treat him worse than Cinderella, favouring his siblings over him, he could only eat left over scraps if there were any, was used as a punching bag, shut in a bathroom full of ammonia and locked in the cellar with a sack for a bed. Unfortunately there are people that treat children this way, and with charity programs such as Full Stop we can help to fight it and this is something going on behind closed doors. But out in the open people aren't content with ruining their own lives and that of their children but at all ages going out and ruining the lives of the rest of us. Shattering the families that care when our back is turned for only a moment. If to keep our children safe we have to be over protective and maybe not grant them the freedom of the good old days then personally I will be handcuffing my children to me, just so they can have a chance to make a difference in the world.